BEYOND OFFSET: WILL THE US MAINTAIN ITS MILITARY EDGE?

ARLINGTON, VA, November 14, 2012 -- Bill Lynn has again joined up with the Washington, DC-based think-tank the Center for New American Security (CNAS) in a new study to examine how the U.S. military can keep its technological edge, preventing rising global powers from possessing weapons that could dominate the U.S. in the future.

This project builds directly on the CNAS Creative Disruption project and is the next step in examining the future technologies, both from allied countries and domestic sources, that can best put the U.S. in a position to offset outside future threats.

The Beyond Offset project aims to build a community-of-interest that will examine the challenges of U.S. technology strategy and advance candidate solutions for the Pentagon and industry. Co-chaired by Lynn and the Honorable Michèle Flournoy, CEO of the Center for a New American Security, the Beyond Offset project will be co-directed by Shawn Brimley, Executive Vice President and Director of Studies and Ben FitzGerald, Director of the Technology and National Security Program.

The Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense have both stated publicly that they believe the U.S. military is losing its technological edge. To remedy that decline they have commenced an initiative to assure the U.S. military’s technological edge through the next several decades.

Based on the ‘offset’ strategy of the late 1970s, which spurred development of game-changing technologies that helped underpin U.S. defense strategy for decades, this new effort comes at a critical time in the debate over Pentagon policy and investment priorities.

The project will release a number of reports, co-host a web-based discussion via the popular forum War on the Rocks. Read more about the project here and join the conversation on Twitter using #BeyondOffset.